It’s fall, and because of the underground construction, I’m taking a little detour—through the cemetery, of course. I have a seminar and finish up pretty early, so I’m taking one of my usual “detours” again. Thanks to my colleague Theda, but also through my own research, I keep coming across interesting gravesites.
In this case, it’s the one belonging to Ben and his family, which has the unique feature of not just one headstone, but three narrow columns with two inscriptions. By now I’ve learned how to find gravesites, but it still requires a bit of detective work. So I feel my way forward using the online obituary search and Google Maps; it’s supposed to be near the “Kleines Glück” (a little bit of happyness) landscape tower.
Eventually I find it and see a man, about my age, clearing autumn leaves from the grave. Approaching people in cemeteries isn’t always easy, as reactions can vary widely.
I ask him if he’s a family member, and he looks at me somewhat puzzled. It turns out he’s of French origin and simply doesn’t understand German. So we chat in English, and he confirms that he’s a friend of the family and checks on the grave regularly. I ask him if he knows the background of the two poems.
He points to a poem engraved at the bottom of one of the columns—more of a saying, really. It’s already quite overgrown, so he clears it away:
“Angels are not to stay on earth, they come and go”
He tells me that Ben’s father, Ronald, used to say that to him before he died. Apparently, his son passed away much earlier. How sad it is when parents have to bury their children.
I’m so caught up in the situation that I can’t ask any further questions. He tells me that he doesn’t know the background of the other poem.
So there we are, both of us standing in the cemetery in front of the grave, searching the internet.
It’s a strange scene, but somehow it feels good and right.
I discover that this is the third stanza of the poem “Moonlit Night” by the poet Joseph von Eichendorff, which he wrote around 1835. Translated from German, it goes something like this:
It was as if the sky
Had silently kissed the earth,
So that, bathed in the glow of blossoms,
She must now dream of him.
The air swept through the fields,
The ears of grain swayed gently,
The forests rustled softly,
So starry was the night.
And my soul spread
Its wings wide,
Flew through the silent lands,
As if flying home.
At the same time, he comes across a singer named “Akim Reikel” on YouTube. He shows it to me and I have to smile, as it is the well-known Hamburg singer Achim Reichel, who has set the poem to music (as Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms had done before him) and can be heard here in a beautiful acoustic version:
External link to the video (YouTube): Achim Reichel - My Soul (spread its wings wide) (Solo with You)
He keeps glancing back and forth between his phone and the poem on the column, visibly moved. I don’t know what to say; I just watch the scene unfold and am just as moved.
Finally, he says, “I didn’t know that. Thank you so much for meeting me here; that was a cosmic moment.”
I still have so many questions, but I can’t ask them because the situation has me so captivated. So we say goodbye with a handshake and a look that conveys deep gratitude on both sides.